Choosing the right permission levels for employees in PI2

This article applies to any user in the Legacy PI software who is soon upgrading to PI2.

User roles are changing quite significantly from Legacy to PI2. We believe these changes will make for a more intuitive software experience; however, we recognize it may take time to acclimate to the new permissions structure, especially if you’ve used Legacy PI for many years.

This article aims to help bridge that gap. Below, we’ll recap how permissions are changing from Legacy to PI2. We’ll also explain what actions you can take — for yourself, or for others — to preserve your old permissions and ensure a seamless transition to the new software.

With user roles in PI2, we wanted to expand admins’ permissioning tools while keeping the experience as user-friendly as possible. As a result, we landed on the following key changes:

In Legacy PI, user roles were blanket permissions; if someone had full access to one area of the software, they had full access everywhere. In PI2, you can now grant/restrict access on a per-product basis, allowing for modularized access control.

As part of PI2’s modular focus, each user is now assigned a specific role for each product. These roles are known as “access levels” in PI2. For instance, you might grant your senior recruiter “Admin” access to Hire, but “Limited” or “No” access to all other PI products.

In Legacy, you’re likely accustomed to terms such as “Power User” and “Read Only.” In designing PI2 from a more modular perspective, we have made some changes to old user roles while deprecating or consolidating others. As a result, almost all of the Legacy user roles have been renamed to better fit their new capabilities.

The ultimate goal of all these changes is to give you, the admin, more control over what software users can see and do in PI2. Fine tune each user’s permissions to your liking, and ensure the right data is in the right hands.

We dedicated a lot of time and user research to better understand how Legacy permissions should “map” to permissions in PI2. Not every role in Legacy has a clear equivalent in PI2, so we had to make some careful decisions on behalf of upgrading clients like yourself.

Ultimately, we took a cautious approach to permission-mapping between Legacy PI and PI2. With the exception of one role — the Account Owner — you will find that most roles in Legacy will default to a role with slightly fewer permissions in PI2.

Let’s walk through these new defaults, so you can determine whether you’d like to override them in PI2.

To see how Legacy permissions translate to PI2, find your current user role on the left-hand side of the below matrix. On the right-hand side, you will see what default permission level(s) you will have in PI2.

The answer depends on your current User Role in Legacy, and what you’re looking to accomplish in PI2.

Here are some key questions to consider asking ahead of your upgrade date:

Not sure what this all means? Let’s walk through each Legacy user role in detail.

In Legacy PI, the Account Owner had unrestricted access to the entire PI platform. This included visibility into all data and access to all company settings.

In PI2, this permission level has been rebranded as “Organization Admin” but otherwise remains the same. If anything, this role has been expanded to allow for greater permissioning and data control.

As an Organization Admin, you’ll have access to all features, functionality, settings, and data.

Here’s a more detailed rundown:

In Legacy PI, Account Admin was a blanket permission that allowed access to various areas of the software, including company settings, folder creation, and the ability to delete and/or anonymize old records. In many ways, Account Admin had similar permissions to Account Owner (the big exception being access to cognitive data).

For PI2, we’ve consolidated the Account Owner and Account Admin roles into one role: “Organization Admin.” We also added a new user role — “Product Admin” — which allows you to enable admin-level permissions for users who require full access to a specific PI product (e.g., Hire) but not full access to all data in the platform.

Account Admins from Legacy will default to the Product Admin role in PI2. This access level is modular. To simulate your previous capabilities in Legacy, the Account Admin role will default to Product Admin access for all PI modules your company is subscribed to. This can be modified at any time.

Here’s a detailed look at how your Account Admin permissions will translate to PI2:

True to their name, “Power Users” in Legacy were often those who used PI the most in an organization. The “User” role in Legacy PI shared most of the same capabilities as the Power User, with a few exceptions. Power Users could create and manage folders; they could also manage information such as name, email, and associated job.

In PI2, the ability to create and manage folders lies solely with the top-level role, Organization Admin. Similarly, managing information is performed mainly through the Org Admin role. As a result, Users and Power Users in Legacy both default to the same role in PI2: “Limited” access.

Here’s a detailed breakdown of how Power Users / Users translate to PI2:

In Legacy PI, Read Only users had access only to very limited data. For example, they could view a report or a team has been shared with them, but they couldn’t manipulate any data or settings in the software.

In PI2, Read Only users will lose access to most areas of the software, with the exception of Inspire. They can continue to access employee reports, but if they had access to a Job Report in Hire or a team in Design, you will need to grant them “Limited” access for them to see it again.

Here’s a detailed visual of the changes:

In Legacy PI, Third Party Users had access to the vast majority of features in the software, minus cognitive data, anonymization, and other data management functionality.

In PI2, Third Party Users remain largely the same (including the name). The TPU role is designed to help outside parties (such as your PI Certified Consultant) provide guidance if and when you need it within the software.

Here’s a detailed breakdown of the changes:

There are two ways to change your default permissions in PI2:

Let’s explore both of these scenarios.

To ensure uninterrupted use of PI2, you can proactively make changes to your permissions in Legacy PI. Doing so will ensure your permissions translate to your desired defaults in PI2.

To update your permissions in Legacy PI:

Once you’ve upgraded to PI2, reach out to your Account Owner (aka, your Organization Admin).

Together with your Org Admin, explain what you’d like your permissions to be in PI2. Have them follow the instructions in this support article and modify your account permissions accordingly.